


Twice-Wed

by Saraste



Series: Nwalin Week 2016 fics [7]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst, Braids, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Fluff, M/M, Nwalin Week, Weddings, nwalin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraste/pseuds/Saraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwalin and Nori are singularly special among most Dwarrows due to the fact that they've technically been wed twice, but only to each other, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice-Wed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katajainen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katajainen/gifts).



> Written for Day 7 of nwalin week 2016: wedding night or anniversaries. Unbeta'd. Posted late to access issues to AO3.
> 
> Set in my nwalin makes pebbles verse before and after Nori leaves Erebor for a year. I'd like to point out that the two aren't technically divorced, only separated, because neither unbraided Dwalin's braids, which Dwalin cold have done and called it quits, which he didn't. Because he luuurves Nori.
> 
> This is for katajainen, who was having a bad day. *hug*

Nori and Dwalin have often been contrary in regard to their relationship as to what comes to how folks usually go about things. That they had even started a relationship in the first place had been prime gossip for the better part of a century and beyond. There might be a ballad written about them and their courtship and marriage, their tragedies. That they had had the unfortunate luck to befall victims of a tragic fate is something mentioned often and always in hushed, sympathetic tones.

  


That they can, in the end, claim to have had two wedding nights, as it were, is something very few Dwarrow can lay claim to. For Dwarrow only marry once and that one love is forever.

  


*

  


Nori had let Dwalin court him according to the ancient rules of courtship, without deviations. However much he might have wanted to lie with Dwalin, and flirting outrageously with him all the time besides, kisses are all they exchange during their courtship. For is is _proper_ and, for him, Nori had wanted to be proper. 

  


So, Dwalin  had  shower ed Nori with courting gifts, braiding love braids and then courting braids into his abundant russet hair. 

  


Nori had fairly preened at the attention, bestowing every gift back in kind upon Dwalin.

  


Dwalin  had made a home ready for No r i in a lovely, airy apartment of rooms, with windows giving open toward Dale and the Long Lake in the distance. There is enough space to room more than one  D warfling, if Mahal is kind,  and space for their respective crafts .

  


Nori is able to bear and his eyes light up bright when they talk about the possibility of a little pebble of their own,  walking on the ramparts, happy in their love and heedless with their dreams for tomorrow .

  


And finally they had braided each other in marriage, surrounded by family. The feast that had followed had been an uproarious affair and they had danced their way into midnight, dreams of tomorrows and possibilities in their happy smiles. They had eventually repaired into their rooms, _their home_ , and consummated their marriage.

  


Nori is small and Dwalin is big yet tog eth e r they fi t and  had found themselves compatible, finding each other's pleasure and more, an intimacy neither had shared with anyone, a love which had no match.

  


And they had loved each other and it  had been enough.

  


In due time Nori and Dwalin had forged a child. Before the Solstice of their wedding year Nori had known that he  was bearing. He  had been able to feel the pebble move inside of him. He had been overjoyed. Dwalin had held his palm to Nori's belly and they had lain in their bed, sketching together happy plan s for the promise of tomorrow s .

  


But tomorrow s never c ame .

  


Nori never got his bearing braids, the bead designs forever relegated to Dwalin's sketching-board, hair never woven into new shapes.

  


A death for a death for a death many times over could have never been enough, for it had not brought their joy back, restored their tomorrows.

  


And Nori had broken.

  


And he had fled.

  


And Dwalin had felt like the i r life together been but a happy dream he'd now  been rudely w akened from, if not for the beads, beads he'd braided into Nori's hair,  there on his palm, the day he had come home to find Nori gone . 

  


*

  


That second time, they're in their bedroom, alone. Sitting across from one another on the bed.  Time and pain between then and now, trying to move forward from going back, from the yesterdays into which Nori had fled.

  


'I shouldn't let you,' Nori whispers, looking at Dwalin. All he  had ever  br ought Dwalin is pain. And he shouldn't. Dwalin deserves better. Not a broken  _thie_ _f_ who couldn't even keep their pebble alive.  Who had thought that he could be proper and forget his past, for that past to come calling and show him that he didn't deserve to hope.

  


Dwalin's  eyes  are haunted. 'Can you tell me that you don't love me?'

  


He doesn't say anything more. Nori stares at the bead's on Dwalin's palm.  _Nori's marriage beads_ . Amethysts with silver inlays. The bead s, which Dwalin had braided into Nori's hair  for what felt so long ago, now. Braids which had been ripped and torn from Nori's hair and braided back before he'd been ready for them.

  


He still doesn't think that he is.

  


'You know that I might not be able to give you a…'

  


'I've never you for that.  I married you because I love you.  We might be blessed again, but we'll never forget the dreams we had. The tomorrow's we lost.'

  


'You're horrible, saying things like that,' Nori gasps. 'How can you expect me to refuse?'

  


'I don't.'

  


And Dwalin surprises him with a light ,chaste kiss, a barely there press of lips to lips, yet more than they have done… after.  After Nori ran and hid, leaving Dwalin in the wreckage.  He presses their foreheads together, closing his eyes, Nori following suit.

  


'If you want us not to be what we were, what we could still be, you'll have to unbraid me  yourself , for I won't, not ever.'

  


' _You can't ask me that_ .'

  


'Then I won't.'

  


They open their eyes,  then, slowly, looking at each other. Both of their eyes are shining with tears.

  


Nori looks at Dwalin, his strong love whom he's hurt so much already, whom he can't but hurt more, if he doesn't let go of him.

  


… and he doesn't want to. For he'd felt torn apart all the time he'd been away, punishing himself for his failure, for letting his past come and destroy his future, but that future is still there in Dwalin's eyes, even those tomorrows they never got and can never forget, those happy moments which are all that they have of their pebble. And there is love, has always been love, always will be, and Nori isn't strong enough to walk away from that a second time.

  


'Braid me, then,' he says, wiping tears from his eyes, trying to smile.

  


Dwalin's fingers in his hair once more are almost too much, he almost flinches, but holds himself together.  Nori feels more whole,  _more himself_ , with every interwoven strand. Dwalin brings each braid to his lips for a kiss once he finishes braiding them.

  


Like he had done when he'd braided Nori into wedlock, that first time,  with joy and sadness still ahead of them .

  


'Husband,' Dwalin said.

  


Nori gives him a watery smile, meeting Dwalin's tear-brimmed eyes. He reache s to touch his own braids in Dwalin's hair, bringing them to his own lips for a kiss.

  


Oh, but he is so very foolish, having let Ori drag him back into this life. Into Dwalin's arms, into their bed,  _their home_ , yet now that he's here, Nori can't let go.  _Doesn't want to_ .

  


'Husband,' he replies, not trusting the hopes clinging to that words still, not daring to dream of a tomorrow.

  


They're still broken and that one year can never be undone, but this is where they are supposed to be  now .

  


That night, Nori sleeps in Dwalin's arms. In their bed, in their  _home_ , for the first time in well over a year, daring to hope, clinging to tomorrows  in his dreams .

  


  



End file.
